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Thread: Hello, greetings and questions.

  1. 09-28-2008, 03:28 PM #1
    LordRaiden
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    Hello, greetings and questions.

    Hi, I'm new here and new to car pc's, so I thought I'd just start with a simple introduction. I'm Steve Lake, owner of Raiden's Realm, a Linux tech and tutorial site. I teach Linux, BSD and open source software to people as part of my community service to the FOSS and Linux/BSD communities.

    As a Linux and FOSS advocate I'd like to compliment the site owners for their open support of Linux. It was very nice to come here in search of some car pc information, and find a front page news article discussing a Linux distribution for car pc's that I didn't know about. (PS, You'll be in tomorrow's news on my site. ) Plus there's a whole forum dedicated to it too! I like that. So I'm really liking this site already.

    Now, on to the first newbie question. Brick throwing is permitted if I ask something stupid, since while I'm not new to computers, I am new to car PC's and I'm not sure if they vary much from regular PC's, thus I may ask something that's bluntly stupid, even if I don't intend to until I better understand them. Hence why the bricks are allowed.

    But either way, I'm here to learn, so I don't plan to stay dumb about car pc's for long. But most of my research I'm going to do for now will be all for the future when I do eventually build my own carpc. The reason it's all future and not present is because my current car is too old to bother with putting a car pc into it (It's a 12+ year old bailing wire and chewing gum special). However, that doesn't mean I don't want to learn about what's out there, the best choices in hardware, installation, lcd, and more so I'm ready when that time comes.

    And since I really don't know where to start, I'm hoping someone can give me a few links to start from so I can read up on car pc's and ultimately use that information to jump off from to find more things and learn all I can, so that when I get the new car, I'll be ready to just basically build, test and install.

    Thanks in advance for your time, and if I can offer my knowledge of Linux, BSD and open source software, please don't hesitate to pick my brains for all they're worth.
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  2. 09-28-2008, 03:33 PM #2
    2k1Toaster
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    FAQ area is a good place to start: http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/faq-emporium/

    Also, a CarPC is any PC in a car... So if you have a 200Mhz P2 and put it in your car it is a CarPC. Now that may not be the best choice, but the choices are what you have to read to know what to choose!

    Only nice CarPC specific things are really the DC-DC ATX power supplies. Instead of 12vdc of your car to 110vac through an inverter back to 12/5/3.3 dc in ATX powersupply, they go directly from 12v to 12/5/3.3. Saves energy, doesnt induce any alternating noise, and have integrated shut-down controllers so the PC starts and stops (or resume/suspend, hibernate/wake, ect..) as the car does without the need to manually start it each time.

    and
    Fusion Brain Version 6 Released!
    1.9in x 2.9in -- 47mm x 73mm
    30 Digital Outputs -- Directly drive a relay
    15 Analogue Inputs -- Read sensors like temperature, light, distance, acceleration, and more
    Buy now in the MP3Car.com Store
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  3. 09-28-2008, 03:38 PM #3
    LordRaiden
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    Cool, thanks. My picture of a car pc has always been an in dash pc with a pop out or embedded LCD screen. That's what I've always termed as a car PC. I've also seen car pc's done in 1 and 2 din slots (my current car is 2din) so that's kind of the direction I was already heading. IE, an in dash entertainment center essentially.

    Of course, it doesn't necessarily need to be in dash as I've seen one guy who actually mounted his under the ash tray and then ran a line up to an LCD he mounted on his dashboard. So I've seen a few designs that would work in that area. But actually building them, well, that's why I'm here. To learn what goes into actually building a tiny little unit like that, proper cooling, power, etc. heh.

    But I'll definitely look at the FAQ's right away! Thanks again for the link!
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